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Month: August 2016

Summer is moving way too fast! It’s already time for our August First Friday and the weather forecast calls for a beautiful evening in Missoula. This First Friday will include the mini-parks set up at street corners and on sidewalks along Higgins Ave. Here are some of the art events we are excited to see:

Our friends at MAM are happy to welcome several of the exhibiting artists for this special opening night of NOT VANISHING: CONTEMPORARY EXPRESSIONS IN INDIGENOUS ART, 1977-2015. Not Vanishing displays the rich diversity and wide range of artistic approaches and subject matter found in today’s contemporary Native art scene. At 7 PM, exhibiting artist Corwin Clairmontwill open Not Vanishing with a traditional blessing and Miles R. Miller, exhibition co-curator, will share his impressions of the spectrum of artmaking included in the exhibit. Artworks range from weaving, beading, and carving, to ceramics and glass, to drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, and sculpture.

In addition to the art exhibition and reception, the groundbreaking for Missoula Art Park will take place on the north side of the museum. At 5 p.m. Mayor John Engen, project designer Anne Hannenburg of SPVV Landscape Architects, Salish artist Corwin Clairmont and other key players will share in the groundbreaking celebration with shovels, hard hats and opening remarks.

The folks at Radius invite us to, “Cruise on in to the biggest, most super-abundant exhibit in town with 61 artists and over 100 artworks, 2-D and 3-D. This is our 2nd annual juried exhibition wherein artists responded to the theme ‘The Changing Moment.’

3 jurists made the selections. You’ll see blue and white ribbons that they awarded cash prizes.” The reception will be from 4-8pm.

School of Art Adjunct Professor Jack Metcalf has something special in store for us at his studio this First Friday. Mr. Metcalf has filed with the Montana Secretary of State and is an official candidate for the office of Justice of the Peace. The School of Art doesn’t endorse candidates, but we sure do like it when they make their official announcements into art exhibits and performances. Join the (possibly) next Missoula Justice of the Peace as he announces his candidacy in artistic style. Jack tells us to expect, “live music from Spencer!, local food from Lower Crossing Farms, new/exciting games, and hundreds of bumper stickers.”

School of Art alumna Miriam Griffinis this month’s featured artist at the Clay Studio. In her exhibit titled, “Vermin” Miriam treats oft-maligned creatures with sensitivity and tenderness. Bats and snakes, and even swarming flies – creatures for whom the artist herself can offer few words of praise – are carved lovingly into porcelain and painted painstakingly in gold. Bats feature most prominently in the exhibition. Their ghoulish features are rendered faithfully in part, yet are just as often simplified, exaggerated, and embellished decadently. The resulting portraits magnify the creatures’ aura of supernatural mystery, and present them in light of a new mythology. Vermin also shows a strong affinity for leopard print, a material which inherently begs questions of identity and representation, nature, power, colonialism, gender, class, and sexuality – subtle yet important themes that run through the body of work as a whole.
Join Meriam at the reception from 5:30-9pm.

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